Help me out here, I'm having an argument

by ballistic 20 Replies latest jw friends

• 

  JanH

  ballistic,

  Reproduction is the driving forve of evolution, so why does evolution not simply favour the genes of those that reproduce the most...I.E. not the most fit, intelligent, etc.

  Organisms procreate by using resources from the environment (ie. other organisms -- plants or animals, oxygen, water, sunlight, etc) to produce offspring. The driving in evolution is for genes to make as many copies of itself as possible, true. But resources are always scarce. And the organism that is more efficient in gathering resources may end up leaving more offspring in the end than a less efficient one, even if the latter leave more initially.

  In evolution, species "select" a strategy based on two factors: number of offspring and how much resources they put into each individual. One goes at the cost of another. Some species, like bacteria and flies, produce a large number of offspring and uses little resources on each. Others, like humans and other primates, go to the other extreme point by putting tremendous resources (including time) into every individual, hoping to make this one as successfull as possible. Based on these factors, a species will land on a strategy that is evolutionary stable (that is, an individual changing strategy will be less successfull). If the environment/competition changes, what is the evolutionary stable strategy will change, etc.
  

  and if this is the case, why does the world not fill up with rampant nyphomaniacs?

  It doesn't?

  Well, some species (and individuals) are more picky than others. For organisms that procreate sexually, there is also a "battle of the sexes" to consider. A female is the one of the two sexes that invest the most time and resources on offspring (that is actually the general definition of female in nature). Males will therefor have a tendency to be more promiscuous. To counter this, females may develop strategies to make sure the male stays around to help her bringing up the little ones. One is to be very picky in her choice, to force him to court her for some time, thus making him less likely to want to go through the same ritual again too often. Still, such a population will generally find itself with individuals using different strategies; ratios will be based on what is the evolutionary stable strategy.

  Richard Dawkins' The Selfish Gene and The Blind Watchmaker explains this and related question in an excellent way. They come highly recommended.

  - Jan
  --
  "Doctor how can you diagnose someone with Obsessive Compulsive Disorder and then act like I had some choice about barging in here right now?" -- As Good As It Gets
• 

  GinnyTosken

  Ballistic,

  why does the world not fill up with rampant nyphomaniacs?

  Who says it hasn't? Haven't you been in jw.com chat lately?

  I know little about the fine points of evolution and usually prefer to observe such discussions without comment.

  Having offerred that caveat, I would question the basic premise. Is reproduction the driving force of evolution? How is "reproduction" defined? If you think of reproduction in an immediate sense, producing large quantities of children would make sense. Taking a longer view, quantity could actually inhibit survival and reproduction.

  On the recommendation of Dogpatch, I have been reading Global Brain by Howard Bloom. If what Bloom says is true, there are two main schools of evolutionary thought--individual selectionists and group selectionists. He explains it this way:

  The individual selectionists who dominate today's neo-Darwinism believe that humans and animals are driven by the voracity of genes. A gene sufficiently greedy to guarantee that many copies of itself make it into the next generation will rapidly expand its family tree. Genes which program for self-denial and give up what they have to help out strangers may fail to breed entirely. Their number will shrink decade after decade until the unselfish utterly fade away. Those who survive will be cynics preprogrammed by natural selection to commit an act of generosity only if their donations pay off in hordes of progeny.

  Meanwhile, another school of evolutionary thought has been driven underground. It is known as group selection. Those few willing to admit to their belief in group selection argue that individuals will sacrifice their genetic legacy in the interests of a larger collectivity. Such a need to cooperate would have been necessary long ago to make a global brain and a planetary nervous system possible. On the other hand, if the individual selectionists prove correct, humans and earlier life-forms would have been unwilling to share knowledge which might have given others a competitive edge. If selfishness is the force that drives us, there are future consequences, too. The cyber-ocean of the World Wide Web and its coming technological successors would be a barracuda pit rather than a meta-intellect.

  All other issues aside, I am amazed at Howard Bloom's ability to write about science in highly readable and eloquent prose:

  The instant of creation marked the dawn of sociality. A neutron is a particle filled with need. It is unable to sustain itself for longer than ten minutes. To survive, it must find at least one mate, then form a family. The initial three minutes of existence were spent in cosmological courting, as protons paired off with neutrons, then rapidly attracted another couple to wed within their embrace, forming the two-proton, two-neutron quartet of a helium nucleus. Those neutrons which managed this match gained relative immortality. Those which stayed single simply ceased to be. The rule at the heart of a learning machine was already being obeyed: "To he who hath it shall be given. From he who hath not even what he hath shall be taken away."

  Protons, on the other hand, seemed able to survive alone. But even they were endowed with inanimate longing. Flitting electrons were overwhelmed by an electrical charge they needed to share. Protons found these elemental sprites irrestistable, and more marriages were made. From the mutual needs of electrons and protons came atoms. Atoms with unfinished outer shells bounced around in need of consorts, and found them in equally bereft counterparts whose extra electrons fit their empty slots.

  And so it continued. A physical analogue of unrequited desire was stirred by allures ranging from the strong nuclear force to gravity. These drew molecules into dust, dust into celestial shards, and knitted together asteroids, stars, solar systems, galaxies, and even the megatraceries of multigalactic matrices. Through the connective compulsion "a terrible beauty was born."

  What a love story, eh? Perhaps the world, in its most elemental sense, is filled up with rampant nymphomaniacs.

  Ginny
• 

  ianao

  All of us "rampant nymphomaniacs" need to fix the d@mn ozone layer.
• 

  ballistic

  Thanks for those answers and quotes. JanH that makes a lot of sense, but just one thing...

  I have always held the view that humans in developed countries had removed themselves from the evolutionary process because through modern medicine, etc we are almost gauranteed survival. (almost but not quite)

  Therefore, it seemed to me that the only gene left with the upper hand is one which reproduces the most. (of course as long as the rest of the body is half decent and capable of procreation).
  And these genes would become more and more dominant in the gene 'pool'???
• 

  rem

  I'm not sure if there is a gene for reproduction, or if there were that it would even be effective in devolped nations. In devoloped nations there is birth control which may work against this. I've read on one of the News Groups that Sexual Selection and Genetic Drift, not so much Natural Selection, is responsible for the evolving we are doing in devoloped nations. I'm not sure how much of that is based on fact or opinion, though.

  rem

  "We all do no end of feeling, and we mistake it for thinking." - Mark Twain
• 

  JanH

  ballistic,

  It is true that because of modern science and especially medicine, evolution is much less a driving force in humans now than it was earlier, and much less compared to other species. We have culture and societies able to react much more quickly than evolution, since the latter only works over generations.

  And, yes, people in developing countries do procreate faster, and make up a higher and higher proportion of humanity as time goes. Due to resource constraints, of course, this has its own problems!

  One can speculate which genes are most likely to be affected by natural selection among humans now. Naturally, a "gene for" a tendency to want more children will be more important after birth control came along. We can perhaps expect over evolutionary time that humans' (especially women's) desires to have more children will be stronger. Perhaps we can also expect genes to try to "work around" birth control by propagating allergy to condoms or pills in the gene pool. Still, science can work much faster than human evolution, so I doubt it will have the most dramatic impact.

  - Jan
  --
  "Doctor how can you diagnose someone with Obsessive Compulsive Disorder and then act like I had some choice about barging in here right now?" -- As Good As It Gets
• 

  Pureheart

  Hey Ballistic,

  You asked the question, "why does the world not fill up with rampant nyphomaniacs"?
  I thought that it was?

  Pureheart
• 

  Yerusalyim

  Within the theory of evolution, one has to survive long enough to mate. Therefore, while one individual may be more PRODUCTIVE sexually, if it isn't smart enough, strong enough, or fast enough, it won't survive long enough to reproduce. Obviously, if evolution is true, we humans have overcome these problems because there are plenty of stupid, slow, and weak people out there mating.

  YERUSALYIM
  "Vanity! It's my favorite sin!"
  [Al Pacino as Satan, in "DEVIL'S ADVOCATE"]
• 

  SixofNine

  I don't know about the rest of you men, but when Ginny talks like that, I just want to impregnate her!
• 

  proplog2

  Nature seems to favor a central tendency. Since survival requires a variety of strategies it is usually the "average" organism that survives. Too much interest in sex may carry recklessness and impulsivity as associated tendencies. Carrying an adequate repertoire of strategies in an adequate amount is a better strategy than specializing by becoming too tall, too agressive, too smart, too creative, too sexual etc.